KINGDOM 3100
The Song of Val'ha
THE SECOND COMING OF XORUS

Around his chamber lit from many candles, Val’ha smelled beeswax and old trees and wondered at the boxes and chests, tables with bound and rolled papers and barks. The skeleton of a creature, Human-shaped but not, hung from a peg and against the furthest wall in a cage lay a huge cat, like Porcie’s but tenfold larger and with black stripe, its teeth sharp and long. Shelves of more scrolls and bound papers covered the walls. "Thank you, Lady Frippe." The wizard nodded to the red-haired Woman who had shown them to his offices. She bowed backward in silence and closed the door behind them. The High Wizarder focused on each for long moments – Porcie, then Thoryn, then Trisahn, and when upon her Val’ha felt her very blood boil, so must the heat in the room have risen, she thought, and her hands tingled with the sensation she had not felt since her last morning atop Mount Carias, after the shadow-dream she could not remember. In the wizard’s eyes was outrage, surprise and familiarity, and Val’ha looked away to escape his burn; he sat back in his tree-chair, elbows on its arms and the tips of his long and many-ringed fingers touching. His brow raised and, low and wise and angry and gentle all at once, he said, "Though neither king nor magician, St. Andronicus Flooher'ty was of such greatness that minstrels herald him in song, for he brought to us in the time before the Great Battle much that we now know in the Ten Kingdoms.

"The Ten Kingdoms themselves owe to this explorer and inventor their very existence, for it was he who mapped the lands of Hafer’ty, he who trekked the Verdish Mountains and came upon Lake Knife, who upon commission of his Asch’endran king made possible the joining of our two lands and gave to the Leictania and Azimq’haadrin the measurements of Time and to us our golden Age of Insipirility in the last ten years before the third millennium." The wizard’s voice rose and deepened, and he dropped his hands and looked at all four and noone; beyond him his great cat paced its cage.

"History itself, the centuries and their measurements he marked from the naught-year of Terr’Uproar, the Period of Re-Enlightenment when a new law and order came, arisen from the Old Time," said the wizard, lost in another reflection, "and charts of all our lands, many here in this room, and the cause of insipirility, of brotherhood and love of kin and togetherness with friend and stranger, to which even our four Blue Rose kings have given their liege and army, to which you, Thoryn of Azimq’haadrin, have crossed Flooher’ty’s great sea to your pledge.

"Upon the death of Andronicus in the last months of the second millennium, the next year brought the birth of Lath-vecat in Leictania and later the Order of the Sages, but then returned from the Dark Time Xorus, God of Black Magic in the House of Terr’des and enemy to king and wizard.

"A century and forty-four years passed since the mortal dust of Xorus went missing, his evil forgotten as peace returned, but his essence grew hidden and rotted, and in time he found favor with Dimatox the trickstress and Goddess of Theft. She granted him entry into the eternal House of Terr’des and through her he made his first coming to the Kingdoms on the dawn of third millennium, and from each Kingdom where had been insipirility he took from the castles of the kings and queens the Nine Swords, gift to our lands from Ariadne, cast by Tan, craftsman of the gods, and a Book. It was these, the enchanted Book and Swords, that had been the trust of mortals, you see, but if the Ten were joined as was the intent of Dimatox through Xorus, the demon-goddess could command mortal will and control the peoples of Terra to whatever purpose she desired."

The High Wizarder gave a slight shudder. "Yet Ariadne blessed for one hundred years the Ten, and they could not be brought together. But Xorus did not know this, and though after months he possessed the Nine Swords stolen by murder, deceit and nightfall, his travel to the Republic of Joh’oprinia, where lay the magickal Book in which the Ceremony of the Swords was written, brought upon his crossing the border of its land a great rage of fire from the heavens, cracks of light and storms unlike any before, Flooher’ty Sea flown over its banks in waves and floods many leagues into the land, Terra split asunder and the mountains ripped apart. The Nine Swords were cast into as many directions amidst the cries and protests of all the gods, some here, some not, lost to Xorus and the plans of his villain-goddess. There is a dirge that tells of the price he paid for his failure; such pain has never been felt in all of the houses of the gods, saints and demons." The High Wizarder breathed deep and stood.

"Dervish, Sword of Gar’s Jealousy that you hold, Porcie," he said, focusing on the Son, "Long have I studied it during its time in my care. You have trusted me to watch over Dervish, the gift to your father of a generous but foolish queen, and for the Sword I know Xorus has returned a second time after this hundred years, to once more lay claim to the Nine and the One.

"In the lands northwest of the Verdish Mountains, where there are no cities, the Loran hermit-wizard Gargantua found the opal birthstone through which Xorus had been conjured on his first coming.

"Gargantua has brought forth the Dark God back into our world, anger and thirst for revenge potent in Xorus’ spirit, who has himself possessed some with gifts; Feukpi, as Porcie has told you, killed Kayleen and stole off with A’crasti, favorite of the king and descendent of Flooher’ty, held hostage for Dervish’s ransom at Castle Ohrt in a valley four leagues west of here. Porcie knows the valley where Ohrt’s hall awaits, and though I am unsure in my heart of this task before you today, Dervish is your Sword, your heirloom, Master Porcie, and you have wielded it with confidence. It is turned to you and those you trust most to return to us with all that has been or would be taken. Xorus, through Feukpi or another I am certain will try again to steal Dervish, but that is for another day and now life is both taken and in peril.

"I warn you all, this may be the first of many tasks awaiting you in the weeks to follow, for with his entry Xorus brings doppelgangers and curses, his powers of possession and retribution. Through our communion in the Order of the Sages, to whom knowledge of both the second coming and the birthstone has come, our goal is to wrest from its bearer Gargantua the demon-god’s portal-stone and destroy it for good. Xorus must not be allowed to begin again the Joining of the Swords and bring upon our lands a new age of destruction."

**

They returned to Porcie and Thoryn’s quarters. "Might we use your table," said Val’ha, "that we may leave behind unneeded things." With Porcie and Thoryn prepared for their quest, Val’ha took only her small axe; even the coins given her by Tropruscht she placed on the table. Trisahn removed his pack, placed it next to Val’ha’s and withdrew from it his knife.

Thoryn spoke with cheer. "Come, Val’ha, if you are not so attached to your garden tool, please take from our armory weapons of greater craft and strength, and you, Trisahn, with that blade you could not cut a rabbit for your next meal!" Thoryn wore light body armor and the shirt of the Blue Rose, on his right belt a silver sword and two hilted silver daggers. He took from the wall a well-made bow and a score of arrows in a quiver of white animal skin.

"Ha! Thoryn, you entertain our guests with your humor," Porcie said, turning to Val’ha and Trisahn. "It is a fact that weapons have been Thoryn’s study all his life, and I am only glad that his insipirility brought to our King his gifts instead of more hostile borders!" The moment lightened Porcie’s face and he lifted his orange cat before they left the quarterhouse.

The armory located within the great surrounding wall of Castle Moncrovia was a vast hall filled with weaponry of all kinds, on rows of shelves and on tables and from spikes on the white walls; Val’ha chose an axe of grey metal, its handle bound in tight and dark animal hide pierced with black bolts. Val’ha and Trisahn replaced their Elven belts with ones better suited to their weapons, brown and black to blend in shadow and forest as did their clothing. Trisahn took a small hand axe and four silver daggers for his selection, Val’ha noticing they were unique in their jewelment.

On the wall Val’ha saw rounded swords great and small whose hilts were two half-circles of ornate gold come round to the head of a roaring bear, blades reflected as deeply as clear water and flaring crescent-shaped into a large curve before ending in a three-point tip. Thoryn gave Val’ha’s arm a warm touch. "You see the gifts of my king borne by me to King Joel as tokens of goodwill. They are double-edged scimitars from Azimq’haadrin; if you hoisted your woodhatchet as a weapon before, this may be to your liking, for it can be wielded in similar fashion." Val’ha hefted several scimitars before taking one of hard copper. She sliced the air and learned quickly to use both hands, swinging the scimitar over her shoulder, side and head. Thoryn, whose heartiness brought cheer to her, smiled. "Now with our horses and arms, we may follow Porcie to the ruins in the Valley of Ohrt."

"Ah!" Trisahn suddenly strode past them around a row of weapons Val’ha could not see. He returned with brown rope attached to his belt and a tinderbox, which he slipped into his tunic.

Outside they rejoined their horses, Porcie’s black steed Desire and Thoryn’s with the saddlery of the Blue Rose; Val’ha’s own mottled-grey mount she named Dragonslayer, for though not hers it bore no name she knew. Dragonslayer rode on grey hoof and with pride in his movement, and Val’ha felt as though they were meant to ride together, such was her confidence in the beast that she requested the saddlery be removed; her wish was granted. They left the grounds.

Val’ha turned her head back to the gardens and midday glare of the white castle and its towers, now with banners of the Blue Rose furled high, and outer walls, and when the spots stopped dancing in her eyes, up further still to Carias. Her heart leaped, sudden and heavy she missed the mountain. It passed in a moment and she returned to her task, the shadow of the outer gate’s hall on her.

When they reached the end-grass of the area between castle wall and the foothills, Porcie veered off the white-stoned road. Thoryn followed and from this and the wizard’s words Val’ha knew that the trail would not be immediately found to Castle Ohrt, if it were there at all. However, the way was not offensive, small woodferns and light brown grass with stones and larger rocks that were easy to navigate, the hills on their left. After several leagues the land began to descend into a valley, a row of small hills taking shape on their right side. There were now too the beginnings of an old trail of white stones. Val’ha nudged Dragonslayer near Porcie. "Porcie, for loss of your beloved I share what is in your heart. Despairing such loss of my father Ma’hadrin..."

"Thank you, Val’ha, but I will keep this pain, though it is like a broken knife inside me. It has determined my efforts – Feukpi who is both coward and charlatan, though he channels through him his master Xorus, will have my Sword!" He gazed at the clouds, Terr’Sol’s position past the foothills enough to bring shadow upon them. "Do not fear attacks by wild things or madmen on the cliffs. Posses and guards are many around this valley, though I venture when Feukpi stole here with A’crasti during the night, Xorus’ magic hid them well. Valley Ohrt - what I even know of it is from a distance, for I once saw it as a child – was the original site for Castle Moncrovia, but the architect and conjurer Ohrt, who hated kings, brought to the castle’s construction spoilage and malcraft. By the time Queen Moncrovia fled, the road-stones were laid, one level of the palace built, as white as our Castle Moncrovia, and rosebushes planted the size of small trees."

"Has anyone entered the valley since then?"

"I am told a knight who wished for favor from Queen Mystinium, our first Queen of the Blue Rose. Her vanity sent him to take from Ohrt’s garden a single rose, as she too heard the legend. But he did not return." They rode in silence after that, reaching the second half of their destination as shadow stretched across the tops of the far cliffs, leaving the valley awash in dusk. Porcie stopped his companions with a raised hand when a pair of gate-pillars came visible; though the monsters atop the pillars were rock overgrown with vine and leaf, their gaze and flapping wings brought a shudder to Val’ha. "The gargoyles were added to these pedestals by Ohrt to curry Eeegh the destruction-goddess’ protection after the royal court fled." The horses stepped back as the riders tried to move them forward. After several attempts, the horses grew more fretful, with protests and whinnies. "We go on foot from here." Porcie dismounted.

They tied their frightened mounts’ ropings around the trunk of an oaktree down the road a small distance and returned to the gate. Porcie withdrew Dervish, jabbed it at the faces of the gargoyles, and resheathed his Sword. Crossing through the gate, Val’ha fell backward, an unseen power at once around and within her. She sensed the malevolence of the grounds, in the stone path they followed and in every tree and bush. But then inside her came another sensation, the same she experienced during her encounter with the High Wizarder. She shut her eyes, all black and then through it the color of forest green, thick and deep. "Val’ha!" She realized she had fallen into Trisahn and shook her head.

Trisahn said no further, and Val’ha tried to find an answer for him. The tingling energy inside her did not abate this time, and coursed through her blood and being. The three Men looked at her with great concern. "It is perhaps the long journey I have been on these many days, but take no fear, I am recovered."

"Are you quite sure?" Thoryn echoed her own disbelief, but she nodded.

"Yes. Yes, I am fine." A hundred yards up the path, Val’ha could hear no birds or animals or even breezes through trees grown high and thick so that they thatched the sky from view. There was light enough to show the decrepit hall, the walls surrounding its entryway fully standing but crumbling back to the woodferns the further out they went. The lowest branches of great oak and trees of red wood brushed the tops of what walls stood tallest. Val’ha spotted to the left bushes of green, white and red. "See Porcie, over there are your roses, in that mist."

"That may well be." The companions reached a point at which the white-stoned path branched into a large circle that went left to the rosebush garden, to the hall and back to their feet. They decided to investigate the garden and traveled the circle until a smaller path led them to a pair of sprawling bushes with roses of red and white. Porcie sniffed the air. "Your eyes deceive you, Val’ha, for there is no mist here."

The trees rustled and Val’ha reached for her axe. "Porcie! Thoryn! Trisahn! Take your guard!" Val’ha wished for the protection of Zeus the God-King and indicated the redwood trees beyond the roses. "Who is there?" Her journeymates readied their weapons; the sound of Women giggling pierced the galling weight of the air. "Step forth!" From behind a tree came two laughing maidens whose skin defied the light, their dark hair in twin braids and dresses as fine as flower petals, one in red and one in white. The maidens approached, each movement a mirror of the other and almost upon the air, goddess-like, shoulders and arms bare and hands behind their backs, skirts over their ankles so that Val’ha could not see their feet.

Past Val’ha to the Men they looked, as though she were not there, and began a sweet, low melody, moving closer. Val’ha only saw vacancy in the Men’s eyes; the goddess’ humming song she recognized from her life on Mount Carias as the Song of Terra, the deep sound she heard most when she put her ear to the mountain or to the ground, in the speech of trees and languages of beast and fowl. To her surprise, the Men’s weapons lowered slowly, then fell from their hands to the ground.

The hum of the rose-colored goddesses grew, and Val’ha smelled danger. The two maidens reached them, eyes wide, their faces soft white. Val’ha tried once more: "Who are you? Where have you come from?" The rose-goddesses stopped for a moment and turned to Val’ha; the Men staggered forth, then back, and slumped to the ground. The rose-goddesses stopped humming and glared at her. In their eyes red lightning appeared, then black; the demonesses brought their arms from behind them, making toward the three fallen Men, and opened their mouths.

In place of hands and tongues were thorns, dark as their eyes. They reached to the Men, hunger on their faces and the stench of poison on them; Val’ha swept her axe at their dripping arms. Moving together, they pulled back from her swing.

Still afloat, the rose-goddesses positioned themselves so the sleeping Men lay between them and Val’ha, and took again toward the Men, thorned tongues licking and the sting of their arms reaching for the death of her companions. Val’ha hurled the axe with all her might; her aim was true, for the axe flew straight, but passed through the maidens and into the woodferns beyond. The rose-goddesses raised their arms to her and lingered over the Men.

Val’ha stepped back at their menace, and again until the goddesses had pushed her into the rosebushes. She took up her scimitar in defense, cutting the vines of the red rosebush so that a rose fell upon her shoulder. The rose-goddesses swooned. "Eeegh!" the red one wailed, a gash upon her arm. They lunged at Val’ha; she dove to one side, and they ran into the bush, shrieked and made at Val’ha. She swung her scimitar at the red bush once more, and again the red maiden’s fury echoed in the wood, a slice across her breast. Val’ha turned from the goddesses and threw all her fury upon the bush, slashing it even as thorns tore her arms and clothing.

"Eeeeeeeeeeegh!" The rose-goddesses’ screech caused Val’ha to almost lose awareness, but she continued on. She found the root from which all of the red bush had grown; her cleave was so deep that when she turned to face the rose-goddesses, their cries now like air escaping through a narrow passage, she found they had vanished into mist. Val’ha cut both bushes to their roots, flinging the flowers and vines in many directions, so in her task that she did not see the three Men arise and regain their weaponry. She recounted how they fell under the enchantment of the rose-goddess’ song and they helped her to toss the vines in many directions and retrieve her axe. Thoryn’s strong arms pulled the stump of the red goddess’ rosebush, ripping the roots completely from the ground, and Porcie brought forth the other, and they dissembled the roots until the hanging mist completely disappeared.

**

"Feukpi!" Val’ha grabbed Trisahn’s sleeve and the Men looked toward the hall. A figure in the distance stood on the front step of Castle Ohrt, a circle of opaline light around his entire body. He gestured and called words Val’ha could not hear, and the light-circle grew brighter, then turned and raced up the ruined stair. "He has heard the maidens!" Thoryn reached for his bow and drew, letting his arrow fly direct and swift toward the retreating figure, but Feukpi was already inside. Porcie led pursuit; Val’ha sensed a faint white color in the glade and a low hum from seeming everywhere, both growing with each step until, by the time they reached the front stair, the air was aglow with opaline and the noise of the Song of Terra deep, corrupted and vibrating the trees.

Broken statues covered by ivy and forest decay lay in piles near the crumbling pedestals on either side of the stairs leading into Castle Ohrt. The ground quaked; masonry from pedestals and castle walls fractured and fell. The companions stumbled and had but little time to recover when the rockpiles left and right of the steps before them quivered and rattled; the statues threw forth, breaking from their overgrowth, each rock under its own strength. The pieces shifted over and around each other, throwing off leaf and branch. Vines of ivy snapped away; the shattered sculptures rebuilt themselves into dagger-tooth hounds as tall as Thoryn.

"Val’ha!" She could not tell who called to her, for the hounds had come to life and snarled and stood on their fours, still of stone but moving as flesh. The end of a broken vine wrapped itself around her knees, encircling her legs and tightening at once. Another vine lashed to Porcie’s chest and coiled itself around him; another sprung to Thoryn’s right wrist, pulling him and growing up his arm. His glance shot over Val’ha’s shoulder toward the gates, his cry silent beneath the loud and mournful drone, and she turned. Through the white glow, as fluid as the snarling dogs, the two gargoyles from atop the pedestals bounded toward them, moving swifter by short flights under the treeboughs, waving their forelimbs madly about. Val’ha turned her axe on the vine around her waist, but it refastened itself and bound more tightly still.

Trisahn, unfettered by the ivy’s grip, drew a dagger in each hand and leaped to the stair so that he was between the dogs, then onto the left hound’s back; it gnashed and circled, Trisahn hacking about its neck and chips of white-stone flying. Porcie charged one of the gargoyles, his force breaking the vine around his chest. It snapped back and wrapped around the forepaw of Trisahn’s hound, holding in place its stone leg while Trisahn chipped away and it bucked and raged to get him off. Porcie doubled back toward Trisahn, one gargoyle in pursuit as the other made at Val’ha; he reached the stone hound and stopped just as the gargoyle took flight to tackle him. Holding aloft his magickal Sword, he mouthed some words and faded into the air. The gargoyle crashed into the hound, sending chunks of stone in all directions and knocking Trisahn off its back; he hit the wall of the castle and crumpled to the ground.

Thoryn charged the other hound, breaking off a piece of its left foreflank with his sword; the creature’s howl rang through the humming forest. Thoryn grasped the vine that clung to him and wrapped it about the hound’s neck three times, cutting himself free. The hound slowed, baying less with each turn of the vine around its neck; pulling back, Thoryn severed its head and the whole of it dissembled into a rockpile.

Val’ha, still strangled by the ivy, found its root source and aimed her axe. It split from the ground and went limp around her, and she threw it off. Thoryn battled the remaining gargoyle while she retrieved her axe and swung at it, breaking off its wing. It charged her; Thoryn stabbed his sword into its throat and heaved the beast over his head in an arc toward the castle steps. It crashed, a heap of rocks. With despair in her heart, Val’ha raced to Trisahn and lifted his body – he did not move, and she could not see any wounds; she laid him at the entryway steps. Blood came away on her hands and she turned his head to see a dolorous gash.

Val’ha did not know if she cried out next or fainted, so grief-stricken was she, but a deep purple haze covered her eyes and then from within her, green so dark she could not at first sense it. The color grew until it rushed through her and she emitted a green light. Her companions stepped back as she put her hand to Trisahn’s wound and held it there for how long she did not recall. The light spilled over his neck and head and when Val’ha removed her hand, there was neither wound nor blood; Trisahn stirred, healed from his fall. He blinked. The healing-light had vanished; Porcie and Thoryn helped them to their feet. Trisahn yelled, "What happened?" and glancing about at the ruins and rubble and hesitating not a second, he raced up the rock-strewn stair into the Hall of Ohrt.

**

Weapons drawn, the companions entered an immense entry room, the Song’s din slighter and opaline light streaming through cracks and the doorway. Webs and dust flew in the light; chunks of fallen building forced them to progress in zigs and zags, their search for tracks or other signs of Feukpi or A’crasti to no avail. With no visible exits, they made each to different walls to investigate. At the far length Trisahn cried their names and they came to him – the wall had shifted so that through dust, cobweb and ruin, it hid a collapsed archway. They passed through ten tall chambers, all as badly damaged and lit as the first and with each, the thundering hum of the outer world grew more distant. Val’ha was thankful that the light shone enough to provide them at least dim vision as they scoured the rooms for Feukpi. "Is there only one way in and out of each room?" wondered Trisahn aloud. "Are there no stairwells? No third doorways?"

"See here, friends." Porcie kneeled at a heap of fallen roof atop the bones of a prone Man in full armor, broken sword to the side. "Queen Mystinium’s fallen champion? Though his task was a rose, greed must have brought him within this hall in search of greater treasure."

They passed the dead warrior into the next room, the first to have more than one exit; an archway opened on the left and one the right. "So it is, finally, a choice upon us!" Trisahn said. "Which do we choose, friends? Through which did Feukpi pass?"

"Val’ha, I have seen your green magic and though I do not know more than we witnessed, do you have the power to tell us the way?" Thoryn asked.

"No, I am sorry, Thoryn," she said; Trisahn, however, was already making to the right door, his paces long and quick. She hastened after him. "Trisahn, wait..." and in the next moment, Trisahn and Val’ha fell through the floor.

**

Through darkness Val’ha flew, the Song of Terra now thundering its deep hum even louder than outside. She counted the swift seconds of her peril, and upon ten landed in a jarring thud on her left side, the ground soft but enough to cause soreness. She felt about in the pitch black; sand sifted through her fingers. She adjusted herself and stood, unable to see the hole from where they had fallen through the floor. The air was cold; "Trisahn! Thoryn! Porcie!" The uttering of their names brought Val’ha calm, though she could not hear her own words. She railed at her vision, useful in deepest shadow but here useless in any direction. Guessing at her green power, she tried to summon it from within her by sheer force of will, but nothing happened.

Something grabbed her from behind. A spark lit her surroundings, and from it grew a flame set to a short candle; the yellow fire cast shadows on Trisahn’s thin face. He handed her the candle to hold and placed the flint back in his tinderbox. Gesturing at his ears and mouth and at the great sound that covered all talk, he appeared not to have been wounded by his fall.

Val’ha raised the candle above her head, its weak flicker revealing a tunnel of rock that rose to a height beyond its light. Trisahn moved to her ear. "The tumble itself was not so bad, but the finish!" She smiled in spite of her fear and put her hand on his shoulder, glad of his company. He yelled again: "So, Lady Val’ha, I ask once more, though I am ashamed of my haste above; which way do we go?"

She put her mouth to his ear: "My friend, I wish only that the rope you carry could be thrown upward! But I am glad of your candle; let us go the only way we can, into the dark!" She cast the flame forward with Trisahn at her side. After a time the tunnel widened. Hoping an exit neared, for they had walked some distance, she suggested they examine the cavern after noticing its walls were more lustrous than before. She waved the candle; they were covered with a moist carapace of brown and speckled black. Moving closer, she saw that the entire wall was covered with creatures resembling great leeches. They seethed over and around each other, hugging at the rock without concern for the fire.

Val’ha fell back in repulsion. "Ugly – worms. Worms that hug the walls!" Trisahn approached the wall-hugging worms with a dagger; Val’ha grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "What are you doing?" She dragged him away from the wallhuggers, spotting a tunnel and checking the sand to make sure it was not the one they had entered from. Disgusted that the wallhuggers might fall on them from the top of the cavern, she pushed Trisahn out through it.

**

Val’ha checked the tunnel walls several times as they traveled to make sure there were no more wallhuggers. The Song’s distorted drone still rattled them; eventually the tunnel began to take shape, the stone more carved and squared, with timbers far apart but then at paces of two lengths on either side. The ceiling descended, too, timbers holding up the rock and webs and hanging dirt-clumps and roots visible in the candle’s flame. The faintest breeze on Val’ha’s face told her an exit might be ahead. "I do not think we are under the castle anymore!"

As they continued an ominous sense grew in her; to her right, the iron bars of a cage replaced the tunnel wall. The bars ran into the sand and up through the rock, five paces across with a locked iron door in the middle. Val’ha poked the tinder-candle through the bars; at the very back (and she had to look twice lest it be a mound of dirt) a Man lay curled up in a corner. He did not move. Trisahn grabbed her wrist and moved the candle to the lock. From his tunic he withdrew a small bolt of cloth and unrolled it across his palm to reveal the small pieces of wood she had seen him whittling on Mount Carias. Each had an odd shape – hooks, points and zigzags – on both ends. Trisahn took one and inserted it in the lock hole, jerking his wrist this way and that until he smiled and replaced the tools. He pushed on the door and it swung in.

They approached the Man, who was dressed from head to foot in blue cloth ornamented with gold circles under layers of dirt. Val’ha touched him and he jerked against the back of the cage, his face confused as a frightened animal. He was slight and handsome, but capture had taken his spirit. Val’ha put up her free hand in peace. "A’crasti!" The Man seemed to understand her, and nodded. She moved closer to his ear. "A’crasti! We are sent by the King to get you out! We must leave!" With that A’crasti rose quickly and they left the cage. Ahead of them, a circle of white light appeared, small at first but then tall and wide as a normal Man. A murky line within the circle dissected it, grew and reshaped itself into a robed magician with flowing grey hair. His face was bare, thin slits for eyes and a flared nose; his lips curled around sharp teeth. He rubbed his hands in queer fashion and stepped about as though in a mad dance.

The humming sound stopped, for a moment disorienting Val’ha as it had droned for hours; she dropped her candle. A’crasti pulled away, screaming, "Feukpi!" and with some strength she had to grab him to stop his retreat. Feukpi crafted a flaming white ball in his hands and hurled it at them. Trisahn pushed Val’ha and A’crasti back into the cage; the fireball hit the tunnel wall, shaking Terra and knocking loose boards and rock. The rumble continued; Feukpi, still surrounded by the opaline light-circle, blocked the cage door, again moving his hands. Trisahn withdrew his last two daggers and cast them at Feukpi, but they chinked against the light-circle and fell into the sand.

"Pebdo’cay fole flyf’woaf id secra tib!" came from behind the conjurer. In the light of his Sword, Porcie appeared from the air, Dervish in full flight at Feukpi. Its blade knocked against him, stopped only for a second by the light-circle before it tore into his flesh. Feukpi cowered at the blow; sparks flew from Dervish’s glance and again as Porcie cut another blow and another, each lessening the brightness of Feukpi’s light-circle and drawing grievous strokes upon him.

For a moment Feukpi in his hunched cower looked tired and small, but then he rose and, flying back, cast a shaft of white light at Porcie. Dervish’s blade deflected the ray and it hit the tunnel wall, exploding. Terra quaked; rocks fell about the cavern. The bars of the cage twisted and the door fell off. Feukpi’s form dissolved into the light-circle; it took flight through the tunnel, stones and dirt crashing in its wake.

"Come!" called Porcie. They exited the cage as Terra toppled in on it, raced through the collapsing tunnel, thunderous noise and dust all around them and finally, up a stair to the outside world, the opaline glow in the air gone. Thoryn awaited them; they vaulted the ruined grounds back toward their horses. Val’ha looked back; the walls of Castle Ohrt were falling and ahead, the front gate lay in a rubble heap. A high-pitched eeegh assaulted their ears for only a moment before fading. Their horses charged with fury out of the valley and even then did the riders push them until they could see no sign of the white-stone road.